Nobody (2021)
Directed by: Ilya Naishuller
Starring: Bob Odenkirk, Aleksey Serebryakov & Connie Nielsen
Run time: 1hr 32min
A bystander who intervenes to help a woman being harassed by a group of men becomes the target of a vengeful drug lord.
You know the way most of the time you look forward to a movie and when you see it, it turns out to be worse than you hoped or just as good? Well, you know that feeling you get when a movie you expected to be good, turns out to be far, far better than your expectations? It happens rarely but it does happen.
And it happened for me with Nobody.
Bob Odenkirk is probably best known for his work as Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul but this movie could change everything we think about the actor.
Playing a man, Hutch Mansell, who seems completely tired of life but who loves his family, Odenkirk finds himself and his son on the end of a gun when his house is broken into and, instead of playing the hero, he lets the robbers escape. It’s something that everyone in his life have an opinion on… usually that he was foolish for not stepping up and saving his family from robbery.
But what they don’t know is that Hutch has a dark past and could have easily dealt with the intruders… but he wants to stay off the radar which he continues to until he is forced to step up to save a young woman on a bus from a bunch of bad guys in what is one of the most exhilarating fights I’ve seen on a big or small screen since Banshee’s ‘meet the new boss’ scuffle in the first season.
We see Hutch exact vengeance on these guys in a way that’s brutal, realistic (in a totally unrealistic way), funny and completely gratifying.
The coordination is fantastic with the fight taking place in the bus, using the confined space in an exciting and imaginative way, with parts of the bus being used by all involved in imaginative ways.
Once this happens, it’s revealed that Hutch has crossed a line that shouldn’t be crossed and he’s on the run until the end of the movie and it never, ever comes up for air or takes the foot of the fun pedal.
And the movie is helped by a great supporting cast with Aleksey Serebryakov playing a really scary villain, Connie Neilsen stepping up as Hutch’s wife who knows more than she lets on about his past but especially great is Christopher Lloyd who plays Hutch’s father and has a couple of wonderful scenes, I’m grinning just thinking about them.
But, while it all sounds like the movie, once it gets past the concept, is pretty basic, it’s far from it.
Hutch’s character is a fully realised man who finds himself in a life that he knows isn’t what it should be but who is there for the love of the people in it. He struggles, he’s frustrated and when he finally lets go, it’s a joyous thing that never lets up until the final second of the movie. A rage that was kept deep, deep down but, as he tells someone in the movie, just wanted to be set free.
Odenkirk’s delivery is part American Beauty, part John Wick and is a truly spectacular thing to see.
I honestly can’t recommend this movie enough. Get it watched – you can thank me later.
Oh, and he’d kick John Wick’s ass. Just sayin’.
5 nerds out of 5
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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